The present invention relates generally to household storage of shoes. It is concerned particularly with closet arrangements and shoe cases.
Conventional closet storage arrangements, in even the costliest new housing, serve the builder rather than the occupant. Wooden cleats are fastened to side walls and a back wall of the closet so that a wooden clothes pole, which is laterally suspended across the closet, will be approximately sixty-five inches above the closet floor thereby accommodating the longest garments conventionally made. A wooden shelf is rested on the cleats above the pole. Since wood will sag under any kind of load in approximately a thirty inch span, a bracket is attached to the rear wall at intervals to support both the pole and the shelf. The whole arrangement is relatively inexpensive to install but results in a large amount of wasted space in a closet at a time when the size of many persons' wardrobes has greatly expanded.
More and more people are finding that the storage space in a conventional closet is inadequate for their needs since more garment hanging space and more shoe storage space is desired to hold larger wardrobes. In a conventional closet, the many pairs of shoes that most people now own are just jumbled in a pile. Thus a convenient shoe storage structure in a closet would be desirable for the large variety of shoes ranging from sneakers to boots that many people own.
The shoe case constructions provided before the present invention for household shoe storage have been deficient in a number of respects. Some have not supported the shoes properly in the desired upright positions. Some have been inconvenient to use. Some have provided inadequate storage capacity.
It is desirable to provide a shoe storage arrangement for use in a closet to enable shoes to be kept neat1y organized off the floor and yet conveniently viewed and reached. On the other hand, the available closet space and/or quantity of shoes to be stored may vary from one closet to another and may vary with time with respect to any given closet. Hence, it would be desirable that a storage arrangement be adaptable to the particular requirements of a variety of typical closets.
It is therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a closet in which large numbers of both high heel and low heel shoes can be stored conveniently with only minimal interference with the space available for hanging garments.
Another object of the invention is to provide versatile shoe case constructions adapted for effective and economical use in household closets.
Another object is to provide such a case wherein the spacing between vertically adjacent footwear supports can be varied to accommodate larger articles such as boots.
The present invention provides a household closet having enhanced capacity for storing clothing and footware for men and women. The closet has a floor, transversely spaced apart side walls, a back wall extending between the two side walls and means providing a door opening spaced forwardly from the back wall. A generally horizontal hang bar for supporting garments on hangers is mounted so that the axis thereof extends generally transversely of the the closet at a location between the back wall and the door opening. A preferably tall multi-tier shoe case is located between the side walls and faces sideways in the closet to minimize the lateral space rendered unuseable for hanging clothes. The shoe case has a rear end near the closet back wall and a front end spaced forwardly toward the door opening. The vertical sides of the shoe case are open for easy visibility of shoes therein. Each tier of the shoe case is provided by three horizontal shoe support members mounted to extend from back to front of the closet. A first of the shoe support members of each tier is located near one side of the shoe case at one level and the second and third ones of the shoe support members of each tier are located near the opposite side of the shoe case in horizontally spaced relationship to each other at another level. The horizontal spacing between the second and third support members of a tier is great enough to cause the rear of a low heel shoe whose front sole portion has been rested on the first support member to bear against an inside portion of the outermost of the second and third support members to prevent the shoe from sliding off the shoe support members. The spacing between the second and third support members and the first support member of a tier is such that a high heel shoe may be securely supported on the support members of the tier with its front sole portion resting on the second or third support members and its heel hooked over the first support member.
For maximizing footwear storage, the shoe case can be quite tall, extending upwardly beyond the level of the hang bar. In this instance, the arrangement will be such that the hang bar actually extends through the openwork shoe case construction.
For maximizing hanging storage of clothing items, a second hang bar may be located below at least a part of the length of the main hang bar and coordinated with the position of the shoe case.
In shoe cases preferred in accordance with the invention, the various tiers are preferentially accessible from one side or the other thereof. Typically, the three support members of a tier are located so that the first support member, over which the heels of ladies' high heel shoes are intended to be hooked, is at the side opposite the side through which normal access is obtained, and the second and third support members are below the first support member and at the open front face side of the unit. Men's low heel shoes are supported in an opposite orientation from high heel shoes. The low heel shoes have their heel portions at the lower level of the second and third support members and their toe portions elevated over the first support member of the tier. This disposes all the shoes in the case so that their mid-portions are inclined and readily available for grasping by a person's hand inserted horizontally through the open front face at a level between the second and third support members of one tier and the second and third support members of the next higher tier.
It is a further feature of the invention that the shoe case is reversible in the closet so that its open front can be directed either to the right or to the left, as viewed from the front opening of the closet, so that it may be accessed comfortably by either right handed users or left handed users.
In some shoe case embodiments in accordance with the invention, there is an inverted tier in which the rear support member is lower than the two forward support members to provide for boot storage. The heel of a boot is inserted between the support members of the pair at the front side of the tier, the sole of the toe portion of the boot is rested on the single support member at the back of the tier, and the ankle portion of the boot will extend in the desired upward direction.
A more complete understanding of the features and advantages of the invention will be gained from consideration of the detailed description which follows.